


Conceive the End

by Tseecka



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Affairs, Angst, Anora Critical, Hiding in Humor, Letters, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-16 00:49:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3468188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tseecka/pseuds/Tseecka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alistair receives a letter from Anora that has him feeling mixed emotions. Owen's not feeling any mixed emotions; he's just hiding them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conceive the End

**Author's Note:**

> Owen Trevelyan is the creation of [Shink](http://didntsayandrastesays.tumblr.com).

The letter in his hands doesn’t seem real. 

The paper is real enough—he can feel the coarse vellum under his fingers, the weight of it, the way the wind keeps threatening to snatch it from his fingers and send it spiraling and spinning out into the chasm beyond the walls of the Keep. He keeps a tight hold on it, not caring that he’s leaving creases across his wife’s neat, narrow handwriting; if the paper vanishes, the news goes along with it, and there will be nothing left to reassure him that it’s real. The news that—news that he had never hoped to receive, that he had long ago given up hope of receiving, and now, he doesn’t know how to feel about it. 

Skyhold is warm, despite the wind; the sun is high and beating down on the ancient grey stones, warming them so that it is comfortable to rest his forearms against the ramparts and lean, bearing his weight enough that his legs no longer feel so shaky. He laughs quietly to himself, chest tight with joy and disbelief, but his eyes prickle. It’s the wind, he tells himself, even as his eyes seek out a familiar figure among the tangled currents of bodies moving through the Keep’s courtyard. 

The child is his. Anora has made that clear. There has never been even an attempt at subterfuge, nor at saving his feelings, when it comes to her paramours and her attempts to get a child from someone other than her Blight-borne infertile husband; she would not start now. The timing, she writes, is right for the child to have been conceived during his last lengthy return to Denerim. His relief, his happiness, at having thwarted the taint in his blood to conceive an heir are bittersweet. He has always wanted a child of his own, to bring a babe into the world that he could hold, and cherish, protect and comfort and love all in equal measure; the chance to counter his own loveless upbringing with a devoted, doting childhood for his baby. Yet in the face of this news, he can’t help feeling like this is not the child he wanted. To be raised to the throne; to spend its whole life, knowing that there will never be a lack of expectations for it. To be unable to make its own choices, in life, no matter how much Alistair might—and will!-fight to give it the chance to do so. Anora’s child; a child raised into a home where there is no love between its mother and father, when it should have been he and Lyna’s, or…

The sound of boots scuffing along stone catches his attention, and he straightens slightly as Owen Trevelyan—Lord and Inquisitor and other titles Alistair can’t, or won’t, name aloud—approaches. The mage has a smile on his face, and though he strolls leisurely along the wall, Alistair isn’t fooled. He’s come here with purpose. Belatedly, the King thinks that he should have found somewhere other than his usual haunt to hide in with his letter and his ruminations over what it will mean. The man flashes him a grin that he does his best to return, and leans on his elbows at his side. Their arms brush, touch, Owen’s skin warmer to Alistair’s senses than the midday sun, but neither of them bothers to move. 

"I take it it’s not good news, or you wouldn’t be hiding up here,” Owen ventures finally, nudging Alistair with his shoulder. “No sudden, unforeseen, tragic change in the rulership of Ferelden, then?”

It’s a joking question, a tease, running banter between the two of them that never means anything despite the way it hints at deeper hurts; but today, it makes his stomach clench. He doesn’t look at Owen, just down at the letter in his hands. 

"It depends what you mean by change," he says, folding it in half and again before handing it to Owen. The man leans over to take it, pressing himself to Alistair’s side, and his fingers run over the address on the front. He’s read enough of Alistair’s letters to recognize Anora’s hand, by now. He doesn’t unfold it. 

There is silence, long enough for Alistair to know that Owen’s going to figure it out, rather than reading the words for himself. He clasps his own hands in front of him, staring at the dark gap between his thumbs and wondering what it would be like to crawl into such a space; to hide, encapsulated in warmth and darkness and shut out from the world. He doesn’t have much time to consider it before Owen carelessly lights a corner of the paper on fire with his fingertips, burning Anora’s words away to ash. 

"When is she due?" he asks. Alistair closes his eyes, pained at the tension in Owen’s voice. 

"Five months," he replies, and lets Owen do the math. "There can be no doubt of the child’s parentage. I was the only man she took to bed in that time."

Owen laughs softly, lowering his head to rest the bridge of his nose on the pads of his thumbs. “She says,” he argues, but Alistair interrupts. 

"She wouldn’t lie to me about that. She’s got no interest in saving my feelings, you know that." It’s true enough, and Owen—Owen’s been recipient of enough wine-tinged rants of Alistair’s, has been witness to enough of his emotional and philosophical crises, to know the truth of that. "If she says it’s my child, that’s because it’s true."

"Or because she feels like she needs that extra incentive in order to pull you away from—from Skyhold, the Inquisition, the people here.” And that’s something Alistair hasn’t considered. Would—does Anora consider Owen enough of a scandal, enough of a threat, to go to such lengths as these just to pull Alistair away? He doesn’t think so, but after remembering the scene he and Owen caused in the feasting hall at Wintersend, he realizes that he can’t truly be sure. 

"It’s—of course I would! I’m not going to abandon a child—a child who the entire world will know is mine, who knows me to be her father—just because she might not actually be my flesh and blood! Especially when there is every chance that this is the only chance to be a father I will ever know!”

Owen’s laugh sounds hollow to Alistair’s ears, his smile and eyes empty, when he pushes away from the wall and faces Alistair. One long hand clasps Alistair’s shoulder, gripping tightly and giving him a shake that is almost too hard to truly be considered “good natured”. “Of course not. No one would expect such shameful behaviour from our Good King Paragon.” He releases Alistair, fingers trailing down over his shoulder as he pulls away. Alistair feels the emergent distance between them as sharp and tangible as knives. He wants to go to the man, take him into his arms, give him reassurances; but there is a child, and responsibility, and a pile of ashes on the flagstones reminding him of his duty, compelling him to stand where he is. Owen waits, but not for long, and then it’s too late.

"Yep. There he is," Owen observes, and he turns on his heel to leave Alistair be. "Name the kid after me, will you?" he calls back over his shoulder as he raises a hand in farewell. "And give my best to Anora."

Alistair didn’t think his heart was still capable of breaking.


End file.
